Origin Stories

Often, when I'm shooting with someone new, the question of how I got into kink photography comes up. I think it's natural. I realized I'd never written anything about that here on the site, so I guess it's about time.

I was first exposed to kink during my days as a photography student. In order to earn money to pay tuition I took a job shooting stills for a porn studio. To be sure, I saw a lot of things that were fairly interesting, but the kink I saw in those days wasn't. For the most part it was extremely contrived.

Still questions of dominance, and in particular dominant women stayed with me.

Roll life's tape forward 15 years or so and I'd been divorced and living in Florida for about 6 months when I found out quite by accident that one of my floor mates (in a condo tower near the beach) was a professional dominatrix. A neighbor photographer was a dream come true for her, especially one who had experience shooting nudes, and a friendship formed. (No, it was not gorgeous Andrea Rosu, pictured above although my friend was strikingly beautiful).

I photographed a few of her sessions, paid by the men she worked with, and saw the way she prepared and the way she cared for the men as people. Her sessions were tailored to them, but they weren't contrived. We used to talk about her work over beers at night on my balcony and one night she asked me to come over and play.

Uhm.. What? Play? Me? Jesus, it scared the crap out of me... (I laugh about this now). But once I got beyond my nervousness it was fun. We had a healthy connection. She pushed my boundaries as I wanted her to and I learned a lot about myself during that time.

But I wasn't submissive. Dominance and submission, and in fact, most topics related to BDSM are largely misunderstood. A true submissive craves dominance. I craved experience. Touch, intimacy, even pain were parts of what I loved with my neighbor, but she and I both knew submission wasn't really part of our connection.

A few years later I was shooting with a fetish model and we'd talked about this. She said, "you're not a sub, but you might be a Dom." I thought about it and decided she was probably right, but I needed to try it to see. And I did, and that was that.

I've had the pleasure of experiencing deeply intimate connections over the years. I feel honored to know and be known by women I respect and trust in ways I would not be known otherwise. The experiences we've shared are private, though there are sometimes images (and sometimes not). The connections are real and deep and fun.

True kink frees us to ask for what we really want. It opens us to enjoy our sexuality in ways I never discovered in my vanilla life. It also frees us to connect in deeper ways. When you are with a kinky partner for any length of time, you KNOW them. And if you are lucky. You are known...

Nowadays, when I'm tying someone or connected in that way I'm amazed at how fresh it all remains. Each person responds differently to a sound spanking or the intimacy of rope.

So that's my story.. What's yours?